Launceston has been included on the federal government’s newly launched cities dashboard, which tracks the progress and performance of 22 Australian cities.

According to the data released on Friday, Launceston has the lowest proportion of households in mortgage stress at 3.2 per cent, compared to an average of 5.6 per cent across the National Cities Performance Framework.

It has been launched as part of the Australian government’s Smart Cities Plan.

Assistant Minister for Cities Angus Taylor said the dashboard was comprehensive and just about the nation.

“What it’s doing is providing the most recent data and this will be ongoing,” he said.

“We’ll be continually updating it, we’ll be continually looking for new data sources with a pure Australian focus.

“Therefore it allows us to really customise federal, state and local policies to the needs of a city, rather than imagining that there’s some silver bullet solution for all of our cities, which will work everywhere.”

Mr Taylor said the tool was important because it reminded people that each city in Australia was different.

“With our regional cities, the great challenge is getting enough jobs and economic growth for their prosperity,” he said. “Whereas in the bigger capitals, the huge challenge is jobs close to where you live, managing connections between where you live and where you work and making sure our housing is affordable.”

There were 46 key indicators in total, which also show that Launceston had the fourth highest proportion of work commutes made by active transport – by foot or bike – in the framework at 5.4 per cent. This compared to an average of 4.3 per cent.

However, Launceston was weaker on unemployment, with the third highest unemployment rate at 6.6 per cent, compared to the average of 5.5 per cent.